My classmates have started studying for their yearly exams which means no classes, only studying. I am not taking them, so I feel there is no point in me going to school to watch them study or draw their faces, which is what I have done the last few days I went. To counter the boredom that is sure to come with an empty day, I have been set up with the nursing school at my new fantastic host Auntie's hospital. Every day I go with the nursing students to nearby villages. I was kind of told, "here is something for you to do, make a project out of it".
I had no idea at all where to start, so I figured why not start with what vaccines babies have taken in the village, with an emphasis on Polio. However, it quickly occurred to me that all of them had had most of the necessary vaccinations. I asked the doctor of the village's primary health care center, and she said the main problems in the village were: malnutrition, diabetes, common cold, respiratory diseases, and blood pressure. I chose to focus on malnutrition of children under 5 years of age mainly because right across the street was a preschool. The doctor miss told me the very basics of malnutrition and how to test for it. She told me about the difference between protein and vitamin deficiencies, and what to look for for a deficiency of each vitamin.
I expected my little study to be me watching the nursing students see if the babies were malnourished and write down their data, but to my surprise the teacher in charge walked me over to the balvardee (preschool), explained to the teacher there what I was doing as best she could, and walked away. I was left with a measuring tape, scale (weighing machine is what they call it), and notebook. Height and weight were easy to test, provided the child was not terrified of the scale- many of the littler ones are. I also learned how to look for anemia, skin diseases, and measure a child's midarm circumference. After realizing many of them had common colds and tooth decay, I began looking for those in every child as well.
I have not really analyzed my information yet, because to be honest I don't know how. However, only one girl I noticed was severely malnourished in the whole 50-student balvardee. Many of them were only one or two kgs underweight, which is pretty normal for that age I think. I am surprised because I assumed the percentage of malnourished kids to be way more.
I finally feel like a real doctor (my ultimate goal in academic life) and it's really amazing to be able to begin some work in India to help satiate my thirst for helping people through medicine. Ahh love it!
I had no idea at all where to start, so I figured why not start with what vaccines babies have taken in the village, with an emphasis on Polio. However, it quickly occurred to me that all of them had had most of the necessary vaccinations. I asked the doctor of the village's primary health care center, and she said the main problems in the village were: malnutrition, diabetes, common cold, respiratory diseases, and blood pressure. I chose to focus on malnutrition of children under 5 years of age mainly because right across the street was a preschool. The doctor miss told me the very basics of malnutrition and how to test for it. She told me about the difference between protein and vitamin deficiencies, and what to look for for a deficiency of each vitamin.
I expected my little study to be me watching the nursing students see if the babies were malnourished and write down their data, but to my surprise the teacher in charge walked me over to the balvardee (preschool), explained to the teacher there what I was doing as best she could, and walked away. I was left with a measuring tape, scale (weighing machine is what they call it), and notebook. Height and weight were easy to test, provided the child was not terrified of the scale- many of the littler ones are. I also learned how to look for anemia, skin diseases, and measure a child's midarm circumference. After realizing many of them had common colds and tooth decay, I began looking for those in every child as well.
I have not really analyzed my information yet, because to be honest I don't know how. However, only one girl I noticed was severely malnourished in the whole 50-student balvardee. Many of them were only one or two kgs underweight, which is pretty normal for that age I think. I am surprised because I assumed the percentage of malnourished kids to be way more.
I finally feel like a real doctor (my ultimate goal in academic life) and it's really amazing to be able to begin some work in India to help satiate my thirst for helping people through medicine. Ahh love it!
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